For My Sons

This morning as I was reading through the newspapers online, I came across this article crafted from inspiring talk given by Prof. Charles Olweny, currently Vice Chancellor of Uganda Martyrs' University. I also discovered that he is an Old Boy of St. Mary's College Kisubi, which I attended from 1988 to 1993. [I may also add that he was one of the founders of Friends of Makerere, an organisation that seeks to mobilise alumni of Makerere University to contribute to the advancement of their alma mater and higher eucation in Uganda, generally. In the inaugural edition of The Mak Alumni magazine, which I edited, Prof. Olweny contributed an article on this initiative and how it started].

The article below was published in The Weekly Observer, which I can testify is the best written and edited newspaper in Uganda [Of note: It is run by young people, a testimony of the potential, talent, skills and abilities that is available among Africa's young generation if these 'elders' hanging on would just exit and leave the stage to us]. Anyway, I reproduced this article on this blog because it is something that I would like my sons to get into their minds when they come of age. It is also good for the parents, teachers and all those whose responbilities include mentoring young people.

Good education can't start at the university
Special Report
Written by Prof. Charles Olweny

On June 8, Prof. Charles Olweny, the Vice Chancellor of Uganda Martyrs’ University, Nkozi, was a guest speaker at the reunion of old boys of St. Mary’s College Kisubi last month. Below, we reproduce an abridged version of his inspirational speech at this event:

Today is a great day for me as it represents an official home coming after 48 years of absence. I graduated from St. Mary’s College in 1960 having been among the first batch to start A-level course here.

I was requested to talk on the theme: “Quality Education and Professionalism” and in preparing for this presentation I asked myself what is QUALITY? What is EDUCATION? And what is PROFESSIONALISM? I will share my preferred definitions of what these words mean to me.

Quality is the degree to which services to an individual or population are (a) likely to achieve desired outcome and (b) consistent with current professional knowledge. A customer who buys your product or experiences your service has certain needs and expectations in mind. If the product or service meets or exceeds those expectations time and again, then in the mind of the customer it is a quality product or quality service.

Customers may switch from one supplier to another not just to get a better price, but rather to secure better service, reliability, accessibility and courtesy. Customers are the most important assets of any company although they do not show up on our balance sheets.

At St. Mary’s Kisubi, the customers are the students, their parents, their sponsors, the Church and the people of Uganda. Has St. Mary’s lived up to or exceeded their expectations? If the answer is yes then St. Mary’s is a quality institution.

What about education?

Some will tell you that education is, for example, “NOT just filling a bucket with knowledge”. My late parents taught me three things: Fear God, work hard and respect authority as all authority comes from God. I have added a fourth dimension or value to my children, namely, “be disciplined”. Discipline is doing the right thing when no one is watching.

Discipline is not just demanding people to take action; it is to do with getting them to first engage in disciplined thought and then take disciplined action. In this regard my parents were my first educators.

My own preferred definition of education is, “what is left when all that you learnt at school, college or university is long forgotten.” What is left is “education” When you can no longer define the principle of Archimedes, when you can no longer deduce Pythagoras’ theorem, when you cannot impute E=MC2, when all the neuroanatomy, or biochemistry is gone, when all the calculus you learnt no longer makes sense, then what is left in you is education.

A good education empowers us; provides us with the necessary knowledge and skills to undertake important tasks in our lives, exploits all our potentials, prepares us to become global citizens and above all teaches us to think critically. Text books teach people subject matter but they do not teach people to think let alone to think critically.

I believe St. Mary’s gave me a good education. St. Mary’s instilled in me the notion of discipline. I recall the early morning wake up call from Brother Louis or Brother Paul Major, rain or no rain. We were taught the appreciation of classical music; I developed then a passion for classical music to this day. We were given dancing lessons; I wonder how many of you can dance foxtrot or waltz or calypso? We were given courses in etiquette. We were encouraged to ask questions and to ask the right questions when faced with complex decisions. We were trained not to cone by rote or cram but to try to understand issues and express them in our own words. Now that I can no longer remember the academic issues, what I have left in me is education and I can proudly announce it was a good education.

Lastly, what is professionalism?

A better definition is “exhibiting a courteous conscientious and generally business-like manner at the work place”. Another definition of professionalism is the conduct, aim and qualities that characterize or make a profession or a professional person. The majority of us here are professionals or belong to one or other of the professions. Do we exhibit courtesy? Are we conscientious? Are we business-like in our work place? Do we exhibit qualities that should characterise our profession? Are we reliable, accessible and courteous to those we serve? I leave it up to each of you to answer those questions

Our mission in this world, according to the late Pope John Paul II, is to seek God, study the world and serve humanity. And according to St. Thomas Aquinas, “God’s grace works through nature”. Encountering God in the bits and pieces of every day life is what we should strive for.

Remember the people you encounter in the streets, in the class room, in the market, in the taxi park are your gods. The people who come to your consultancy rooms – whether you are an architect, an engineer or a medical doctor – are all your gods. Please treat them as if they are God.

Take your heart to work and ask everybody else to do the same. Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth, don’t let them get swallowed up by the great chewing i.e. Complacency. An ancient Buddhist expression states, “If we are facing the right direction all we have to do is walk”.

I suspect that the organisers wanted me to talk about quality university education. I have intentionally avoided doing so because quality education begins in the home. The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people. Quality education begins in the primary and secondary schools. Unfortunately, by the time the students get to university, the dye is cast and it is almost impossible to mould them into quality products.